I should probably give a look at openSuse...
Switch to the LTS kernel as well if you can, i.e. if your hardware does not need the HWE (Hardware Enablement) versions. The HWE kernels are mostly for newish laptops anyway and proper server hardware shouldn't need it.
Freebsd isnt linux, but is great server OS.
There seems to be also a (planned?) free version of Red Had, if you want complete stability and only security updates.
Not "exactly the middle ground", so much as
Fedora ---------------------------------------->> CentOS Stream -->> RHEL
At any given time CentOS Stream is only a couple months ahead of RHEL, that is not remotely true for Fedora.
The only thing I had to build for myself was an Arch install ISO with ZFS included.